The next case they worked together on, for an unstable actress, was a tough one for him. He had missed working with her. Her insight complemented his research. They made - had made -a good team. Now, though, they spent the 45-minute drive to the set in complete silence. Considering that he was a man who was professionally silent, he was surprised at how uncomfortable that made him. He made the mistake of asking her about it, and she had snapped that there was nothing to say. He shouldn't have said anything, but he was having a hard time being around her. Now she'd think he missed their conversations.
After all, he was actively being cruel to her, which, he was glad to see, was making her angry as well as wounded. He felt bad rooting against her, but it was for her own good. A colossal failure would help speed her to the door. He would still do his professional best, but he wasn't going to be encouraging. Unfortunately, his barbs were disregarded. She was a tough one in some ways.
The actress was being troublesome, so he happily brought her over to Dani's. Hopefully it would be an inconvenience. Dani did look put out, but she stepped up and comforted the distraught girl who had thrown herself in Dani's arms. She was clearly concerned about this girl and her relationship with this Lars guy.
Then it happened.
The actress, gushing about her latest love, said, "Haven't you ever had that feeling, Dr. Santino, where you have something with another person and you can't describe it but it's undeniable? And you had to act on it or you'd just… burst."
She looked at him. And he looked at her. His stomach lurched, and for a moment he was concerned that his feelings were too obvious. And then they both looked away. It was so quick. But it was out there. Even the actress in her massive cloud of self-absorption caught that there was something going on.
Whatever they had between them wasn't entirely in the past for her.
He tried to recover. He was downright cold to her when he told her she could interpret his desire not to work with her any way she wanted, making it clear that he had no interest. For the first time, he saw a flash of hurt in her eyes. She rallied, but he knew he couldn't do that to her again. And he also knew she wasn't going anywhere. She was back in his life.
He sat in his car outside her house for a few minutes while he attempted to clear his head. He ended up getting two things from this process. The first was that he was still madly, wildly in love with her. The second is that he wasn't going to give up this time. He wanted to be in her life, and he wanted her to be in his. He needed a plan.
He worked it out fairly quickly once he saw the end game. He needed to get what he needed on V3 and get out. Then he would see if he could get Dr. Dani to admit her feelings for him. He didn't know how long it would take for him to get the information, and he had to undo some of the damage he had done to his relationship with Dani while he was waiting. And he had to undo it without drawing attention from others.
By the time he returned to her house with the information on the boyfriend, things were different, at least professionally. He didn't feel the edge he did before. When she said, "Oh, no" at the news he provided, he didn't miss a beat. "Oh, yes. Our friend Buttons is a stalker." Our. They were back in sync.